DEATH

Translated from Lamarline by Sir ToUemache Sinclair. To die, ah ! this one word creates distaste of life, Eternity is't worth one hour of woe, of strife ? Grief us precedes and brings us birth from dread Fate's womb, Grief after birth, in turn, gives death, oh! Avretched doom, No more the time I reckon which it leaves to me, As I it measured in my green youth full of glee, By adding to my days long days to come' mid tears, But in suppressing them from my sad future years, I say a day more, a day less, this dawn unblest. Takes from me one of those still left to me as guest. No longer I them miss as in the dawn of life, Full, brilliant, gilded and of happy days so rife. But dull, pale and discoloured, empty, void of scents, Like a cracked urn whose arid sides quite full of rents Let all the water out which parched man seeks in vain, t

The Past devoid of joy, the present with no hope — with pain, i

Today is but like yesterday, ah! that I see. And morning has no more the voice which wakened me, I envy the dark tomb, the long sleep which benumbs. And my grieved soul already sad as Death becomes.